In a recent CJ Project article, a discovery of a string of lawsuits alleging mistreatment of New Mexico jail inmates in recent years has cost five counties more than $20 million in legal settlements and jury awards. The complaints describe squalid conditions in bare cells where the inmates were held in isolation as they awaited trial on charges ranging from drunken driving to burglary. Jail administrators and their supporters have maintained that corrections officers often must place inmates, especially those suffering from mental illness, in solitary confinement to keep them from harming themselves or becoming the target of others. CJ Project reporter Mary Hudetz looks at various cases across New Mexico from 2012 to the present and the conditions many inmates have faced.